Part 24

=Hairbell or Blue-bell= (Campanula rotundifolia).

This is the true Blue-bell of Scotland. As we have indicated (page 14), the Blue-bell of the Southron is the Wild Hyacinth. Scotsmen are very sensitive upon the point of the Hyacinth having so dear a name bestowed upon it, when it has already a sufficiently good and classical one, and there are few, if any, more certain ways of rousing a Scot than by exhibiting Scilla as the true Blue-bell, or by describing Campanula as the Hairbell. Others have found the plant a fruitful source of controversy on a philological point--should it be spelled Hairbell or Harebell?--does its name refer to the slender hair-like stems, or to its habit of growing where hares delight to revel? As against Hairbell, which is descriptive of the plant, Harebell has no chance of retention among botanists, whatever philologists may say.

There are six species of Campanula included in the British flora, of which two are rare, and one of these is probably only an escape from cultivation. The characteristic of them all is a beautiful bell-shaped corolla with five lobes, five stamens, and the style with three to five stigmas. They are mostly perennial, and the flowers most frequently blue. C. rotundifolia has a creeping rootstock, and several slender-angled stems. The first formed leaves, near the ground, are more or less rotund in shape, and stalked, but as they occur higher up the stem they are more and more linear. The flowers are nodding or drooping, and swayed by the breeze. Heaths and pastures. July to September.

The Nettle-leaved Bell-flower (C. trachelium) is an erect tall-stemmed (3 feet or more) hairy species, with leaves like nettles, with large purple flowers in a terminal panicle. Woody lanes and copses. August to October.

=The Centaury= (Erythræa centaurium).

A very neat and beautiful plant, not nearly so well-known as it should be. It is an annual plant, with erect stem, less than a foot in height, the leaves in pairs growing together at their bases, and funnel-shaped pink flowers produced in terminal cymes. It grows in woods and sandy or chalky pastures, flowering from June till September.

The name is from the Greek, Eruthros, red, in allusion to the pink flowers.

=Wild Mignonette= (Reseda lutea), and

=Weld or Dyer’s-weed= (Reseda luteola).

So familiar is the Sweet Mignonette of our gardens, and so like and yet unlike are these wild species, that whilst no one would take them for the garden plant one need not be a botanist to see their natural affinities at a glance. Like their garden relative these are annual herbs, becoming biennial when we have mild winters; with flowers that are individually inconspicuous, but which gain sufficient prominence by being associated in racemes. In colour they are a yellow-green. The calyx is irregular, and divided into from four to seven narrow segments; there is a similar number of unequal petals, each deeply cleft into two lobes, and a multitude of stamens. The stigmas are lobes at the mouth of the open ovary.

I. Wild Mignonette (R. lutea) grows in dry waste places, especially in chalky districts. Its leaves vary a great deal, but are either pinnate or deeply lobed in a somewhat irregular manner. Flowers, pale-yellow in a tolerably dense raceme. Very similar to the Sweet Mignonette, but stiffer, more erect, and scentless. Flowers June to September.

II. Weld (R. luteola). This is a much taller plant than R. lutea, with longer racemes and denser; the flowers more green than yellow, and with undivided glossy leaves. Petals, three, four, or five. In the days before aniline colours this plant was much used by dyers, and cultivated for their purposes. It yields a beautiful yellow dye, and its juice is also used in the preparation of the artist’s colour called Dutch pink. It is a common wayside plant in England and in Ireland, more rare in Scotland, and flowers from June to September.

Reseda lutea.

=Weld. Dyer’s Weed.=

Reseda luteola.

--RESEDACEÆ.--]

Borago officinalis.

--BORAGINEÆ.--]

The name is from the Latin, Resedo, to appease, from these plants being formerly considered as sedatives.

=Borage= (Borago officinalis).

This is a plant one may find on rubbish heaps and waste ground anywhere near the habitations of man, for it is not, strictly speaking, a native, though thoroughly well-established here. An old adage runs: “I, Borage, always bring courage,” and it was supposed to brace up the heart for great enterprises. It was therefore widely cultivated in old gardens, and has survived to this day in the grounds of old houses, where it has frequently made its escape, or surplus plants have been thrown out upon the rubbish heaps. Instead of allowing itself to go the way of garden refuse, it has taken hold of the ground there, multiplied and brightened the place with its beauty.

Every part of the plant, except the corolla, bristles with short stiff hairs. It has an erect juicy stem, and rough, lance-shaped leaves, the radical ones on long footstalks, those on the stem stalkless and clasping their support. The sepals are five in number, long and narrow, cohering by their bases. The corolla is of the form technically known as rotate, that is, with the petals joined at their lower parts to a short tube, from the top of which five pointed lobes radiate. It is coloured a most brilliant and beautiful blue, such as is rarely seen in flowers. There is a pale yellow ovary that secretes honey, and around it, attached to the throat of the corolla-tube, are the five united stamens. The anthers are dark purple, and open in such manner that the pollen falls between them and the pistil, somewhat as in Viola. By this arrangement both honey and pollen are protected from the depredations of insects who have no right to it. Bees, however, in forcing their tongues down to the honeyed ovary, separate the anthers and let loose the pollen, which falls upon their heads and will be brought into contact with the stigma of another flower at their next visit. Cross-fertilization is further helped by the stigmas of a flower not becoming ripe until its anthers have shed their pollen. Flowers June and July.

Name probably from the Latin Bourra, a flock of wool, in allusion to its hairy character.

=Oblong Pond-weed= (Potamogeton polygonifolius).

We have pond-weeds in abundance, but the Potamogetons are the pond-weeds par excellence. There is scarcely a piece of water in this country, be it river, lake, pond, canal, or intermittently dry ditch, but has one or more species growing there. The genus is a very difficult one, such as it is impossible to do more than show the general characters of here. Hooker and Bennett, in their revision of the genus, give twenty-one British species with a number of connecting sub-species and varieties. The one figured here is the Oblong Pond-weed (P. polygonifolius), with narrowly egg-shaped floating leaves, and narrower submerged leaves. All have long leaf-stalks. The floating leaves always present the upper side to the air, and are always perfectly dry. The flowers are greenish and unattractive, collected into a slender spike. Individually they consist of a four-parted perianth, four stamens, four carpels. There is a species (P. natans) with broader floating leaves and narrow submerged leaves. A broader still is P. plantagineus, with clearer leaves and more slender leaf-stalks. P. crispus, P. densus, P. perfoliatus, P. prælongus, etc., have only submerged leaves, which are more or less oblong.

Potamogeton polygonifolius.

--NAIADEÆ.--]

Clematis vitalba.